Kobe Bean Bryant, also known as ‘The Black Mamba’, would have celebrated his 43rd birthday today. The legendary basketball player passed away last year in a helicopter crash that also killed eight other people, including his daughter Gianna Bryant, on 26 January 2020. Five-time NBA champion, Bryant is considered to be one of the greatest NBA personalities of all time. In his 20-year long professional basketball career, he was two-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, 2008 NBA MVP and 18-time NBA All-Star.
Kobe Bean Bryant was born on August 23 in 1978 in Philadelphia. Bryant’s father, Joe Bryant was also a professional basketball player. Kobe entered the Los Angeles Lakers as a precocious 18-year-old, as part of the enviable 1996 Draft Class. He made his debut in the 1996-97 season for the Lakers at the age of 18 and became the second-youngest player to play professional basketball in the NBA. Bryant, who has been 2-time Olympic gold medalist in 2008 Summer Olympics and 2012 London Games, was posthumously given the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021. He was only 41 at the time of his death.
Recently, former NBA player Caron Butler disclosed a sensational story about playing with Bryant on the 2004-05 Lakers. “I’ve never told this story,” Butler said on a podcast. “We was in Charlotte, and we was in the huddle, and he was like, the game was tied. There was only four seconds, three seconds on the shot clock. Rudy T [Rudy Tomjanovich] drawing up all type of s— on the board, and he swiped it off again, and Kobe said, ‘F— that. Just give me the ball right here.’ He was like, ‘Whoever want to take the ball out going to be part of history.’ And Lamar [Odom] was like, ‘I want to be part history.’ He threw that s— in, man. Kobe hit the shot, blouses, game.”
The basketball star, Kobe Bryant is an inspiration for his peers and those that have followed. In his 20 years of career he won several awards and beyond that he won the hearts of millions across the world. On Monday, basketball fans around the globe are celebrating his 43rd birth anniversary and his legacy to the world of basketball.
